Files are stored by operating systems as compressed files or as uncompressed files. A compressed file characteristically requires less storage space than an uncompressed file. Compression of files is typically done with a compression algorithm, such as a GNU (Gnu Not Unix) ZIP (GZIP) compression algorithm, a Lempel Ziv Jeff Bonwick (LZJB) compression algorithm, or a Lempel Ziv compression algorithm published in 1977 (LZ77). These compression/decompression algorithms are also referred to as simply GZIP, LZJB, or LZ77 compression/decompression algorithms or as GZIP, LZJB, or LZ77 compression/decompression types. Dependent on the operating system used, the user may be able to choose whether to use a compression algorithm, and if so, which compression algorithm is to be used. Further, the user may be able to choose the compression algorithm on a per file type basis. Compression/decompression of files can be done in software or in hardware. In the former case, the compression/decompression is also referred to as software-assisted compression/decompression or simply as software compression/decompression.
Software compression/decompression requires a relatively long amount of time to complete and utilizes additional computing resources of the processor. In contrast, hardware compression/decompression is provided, for example, on the same die as the processor or as a separate add-on card for a computing system. In both cases, the physical devices to perform hardware compression/decompression are also referred to as hardware compression/decompression engines or as compression/decompression hardware accelerators. Hardware compression/decompression, when compared to software compression/decompression, generally requires a smaller amount of time to complete and requires less processor resources but at an additional cost. For example, the processor die area on a silicon wafer is at a premium and adding one or more hardware compression/decompression accelerators to the processor die requires additional die area. Similarly, the add-on card with one or more hardware compression/decompression accelerators invokes an additional cost to the computing system. In that respect, it may be beneficial to explore how hardware compression performance can be increased to speed up file compression, while keeping a cost-adder to a minimum.